Kishishiki Zerozaki
Kishishiki Zerozaki (零崎 軋識, Zerozaki Kishishiki), also known as ( , ), is one of the three "Heavenly Zerozaki Kings" of the Zerozaki Clan. He is the longest living killer (on the official record), and has killed the most people. He is also a member of Team, under the name Kishiki Shikigishi (式岸 軋騎, Shikigishi Kishiki), with the title of Squirming Ruination (蠢く没落, Ugomeku Botsuraku), also known as ( , ), with the specialty of hardware. Personality Kishishiki is serious about his job as an assassin and acts as a professional. He doesn't think of Hitoshiki Zerozaki as family, telling Soushiki Zerozaki that if he becomes a disability to the Clan, he will kill him. This shows that Kishishiki is a fairly cold individual. He is a realist, and doesn't believe that ideals have any place in the world of killing. He thinks there's no use in thinking of reasons for murder. Of the "Heavenly Zerozaki Kings", he is rather important, as he is treated as basically the representative of the clan. This puts a lot of responsability on him, and he always considers the family most important. Hitoshiki Zerozaki refers to him as "Admiral". He refers to Soushiki as "Ren", based on his epithet, Mind Render, and Soushiki refers to him as Asu (アス, Asu), based on Kishishiki's epithet, Seamless Bias. He has a hobby of browsing the internet, and prefers doing so to killing. However, he doesn't let this be detrimental to his job. As a former member of Team, much like everyone else in the group, he thought of Tomo Kunagisa as a Tyrant, and he said that he was in love with her. His prefered name for Team is ( , ). Appearance He is a fairly tall and fairly muscular man with tanned skin and green eyes. As Kishishiki, he has white-dyed short, slicked back hair with lime green highlights and wears a brown sun hat on his head. He also wears red eye-shadow, and his attire consists of a white tank-top, large, green striped trousers, and lime green sandals, with a green cloth tied to his ankles. He carries his weapon, a bat with nails in it, inside a sheath. Sometimes, he also wears a pair of small, round glasses. As Kishiki, he has his natural black hair, and wears a black striped suit, with a light green undershirt, and a green tie. When he was a child, he was shown wearing torn white clothes, a bandage on his right hand, and no shoes. He also had disheveled black and white hair. History Kishiki was formerly a part of Cluster, the team of hackers lead by Tomo Kunagisa. Plot Kishishiki Zerozaki's Human Knock 'Sniper Onslaught' Mifuri Sanjusangendou, an assassin hired to kill Kishishiki Zerozaki, waiting in the middle of a pile of human bodies, boldly announces his name and ideals and asking for his target to show himself so he can kill him. Before Mifuri can even react, Kishishiki decapitates him with his bat, and pragmatically says that killing is just a job, with no place for ideals. Next, the person who hired Mifuri appears planning to send some better assassins after him. While Kishishiki is readying himself for his job by dying his hair white, Soushiki Zerozaki calls him from the blood-splattered site of a finished job, and waxes philosophical about the nature of murderers. Annoyed, Kishishiki asks Soushiki to get to the point, and he responds by telling him to kill some people that Soushiki couldn't get to, and accompany a young Hitoshiki Zerozaki to get him some practical experience. Kishishiki accepts. Later, Hitoshiki is eating a huge parfait bought by Kishishiki, which makes the latter annoyed. Kishishiki then asks what the boy's older brother said about him, and he answers that he said that he "has something he doesn't." Next, he explains that the job consists of killing eight people located at the top of an apartment building, and that Hitoshiki's role is to kill everyone else in the mansion, so the killings cannot be traced back to the Zerozaki Clan. Hitoshiki is a bit reluctant, but Kishishiki tells him that he should do anything to protect the family, and Hitoshiki finally agrees. Kishishiki goes in first, after telling his partner with a laugh that he doesn't want to be caught up in his "indiscriminate carpet bombing", so he should wait for 5 minutes outside. While in the elevator, Kishishiki thinks to himself that he doesn't understand Soushiki at all, and after exiting he immediately gets shot at by two men in black suits, but avoids getting hurt and easily defeats them. Then, he enters the meeting room, and brutally murders the eight targets while pondering that killers don't need to think of any reasons. After his job is done, Hitoshiki also arrives, and the two wonder why the targets remained in the building if they knew the Zerozaki were after him. Then, one of the targets that hasn't yet died remarks that "they've been had." Hitoshiki wants to start questioning him, but Kishishiki kicks him out of the way of a bullet, who hits the man instead, finally killing him. The two Zerozakis hide behind a wall, away from the sniper's sight. Hitoshiki tells Kishishiki that he has heard guns don't have any effect against the Zerozaki, but Kishishiki shoots back that rifles don't count. The sniper is revealed to be a young Shiogi Hagihara. Hiding from Shiogi's sight, Kishishiki Zerozaki thinks to himself that "today has been absolute shit". After some time spent staying hidden behind the wall, having entered a stalemate, Shiogi calls Tamamo Saijou to go in the same building the two killers are in, so she can draw them in her field of vision. Because of this, Kishishiki initially panics, but then Hitoshiki sits up and goes to handle the situation instead, to which Kishishiki shows concern. Hitoshiki starts fighting with Tamamo, both occasionally using the remaining corpses in the room as sheilds. Eventually, Shiogi gets ready to shoot Hitoshiki, but the boy can feel her killing intent and manages to deflect the bullets with his knives, much to the surprise of Kishishiki. Seeing that, Kishishiki is initially stunned, but after seeing Hitoshiki fight and remembering the boy's big brother, he sits up as well, and uses Praise of Folly to back up his partener. Even while sweating buckets, Kishishiki hits Shiogi's shots back like baseballs with the solid lead bat. Seeing that, Hitoshiki regains his confidence, and pours all his attention towards defeating Tamamo, and easily does so. Seeing the two Zerozakis work together, Shiogi figures that her plan can no longer work, and contacts them by using Tamamo's radio. Kishishiki initially responds, but Hitoshiki snatches the radio out of the older man's hands, and angrily screams at Shiogi, swearing that he will kill her and the one who hired her for toying with them. Kishishiki is very surprised by the boy, as he had never seen him angry before. After the two enemies' conversation, Hitoshiki crushes the radio in his hands. After that, he returns to normal demeanor and lets Tamamo escape, saying that he just remembered he had homework to do, while playing with Kishishiki's wrecked weapon. The admiral responds by snatching it back, and telling the young man not to touch it. Then, he asks him if he likes killing, to which Hitoshiki says he finds it boring. Equipment Seamless Bias (Praise of Folly): Kishishiki's weapon of choice, a bat covered with nails. The bat was made entirely out of lead, the nails being a part of the weapon itself rather than attachments inserted in it later. Kishishiki uses the centrifugal force, aided by the weapon's great weight, in order to brutally murder his opponents. Abilities Hardware Expert: Being a former member of Team, he is an expert at computer science. Specifcally, his specialty was assembling and disassembling hardware. Zerozaki Killing Mentality: Since he is a Zerozaki, Kishishiki does have a killing mentality, however he doesn't really have any drive to kill, as he only does it as a job, in order to protect the family. Fighter: He is a very strong individual, being able to easily defeat his enemies in close quarters combat. Trivia *Kishishiki's given name can be translated to "knowing friction" or "knowing strife" (軋, Kishi = To Creak, To Grate, Friction, Strife; 識, Shiki = Know). *Shikigishi, his alias' last name, is written with the characters for "system" and "beach" (式, Shiki = Method, Function, System; 岸, Kishi = Beach). The "system" part of his name might be a reference to his job of hacking in Team, where he uses this name. *Kishiki, his alias's first name, can be roughly translated to "equestrian friction" (軋, Kishi = To Creak, To Grate, Friction, Strife; 騎, Ki = Equestrian, Riding on Horses). *His name is a palindrome in Japanese, as it is read the same forwards and backwards: きししき (Ki Shi Shi Ki). The same can be said about the last name of his alias, Shikigishi, although the second "Ki" is pronounced as "Gi" in a compound: しきぎし (Shi Ki Gi Shi). *In the first episode of the live-action adaptation of Okitegami Kyouko no Biboroku, another light novel series written by Nisioisin, in the house of a manga artist in the story, a poster with art from the manga adaptation of the second Ningen novel, featuring Kishishiki, Hitoshiki and Soushiki Zerozaki, can be seen on a wall. References Category:Characters Category:Male Category:Zerozaki Clan Category:Team